$765M NFL SETTLEMENT

League, former players reach tentative accord on concussion lawsuits

The NFL has reached a tentative $765 million settlement over concussion-related brain injuries among its former players, agreeing to compensate sufferers, pay for baseline medical exams and underwrite medical, safety and injury-prevention research.

The agreement, subject to approval by U.S. District Judge Anita Brody in Philadelphia, was announced Thursday after two months of court-ordered mediation. It came just days before a scheduled Sept. 5 progress report to Brody by former U.S. District Judge Layn Phillips, the court-appointed mediator, as well as the opening of the 2013 NFL regular season.

According to a press release issued by the Alternative Dispute Resolution Center in Newport Beach, “the settlement does not represent, and cannot be considered, an admission by the NFL of liability, or an admission that the plaintiffs’ injuries were caused by football. Nor is it an acknowledgment by the plaintiffs of any deficiency in their case.”

The settlement will include all players who have retired as of the date on which the court grants preliminary approval to the settlement agreement, their authorized representatives or family members (if a former player is deceased). The number of retired NFL players is about 18,000. The settlement does not include current players, who are covered under a collective bargaining agreement.

Since 2011, more than 4,500 former players and their families have sued the NFL, many complaining they suffer from headaches, depression, memory loss, insomnia, dementia, Alzheimer’s disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) or Parkinson’s. They blame their ailments on repeated blows to the head incurred while playing pro football. They accused the NFL of knowing for decades of the harmful effects of subconcussive and concussive injuries to players’ brains but choosing to actively conceal those facts from the players and the public.

More than 320 former San Diego Chargers players and their families are involved in the lawsuits, including the family of linebacker Junior Seau, who committed suicide in May 2012 at the age of 43. Seau shot himself in the heart at his Oceanside home. An autopsy of his brain tissue, conducted by the National Institutes of Health under the direction of Seau’s four children, revealed chronic traumatic encephalopathy, a progressive degenerative brain disease most commonly found in athletes who have experienced repeated head trauma while competing in football, hockey, pro wrestling or other contact sports.

Seau’s children — Tyler, Sydney, Jake and Hunter — along with Bette Hoffman, former director of the Junior Seau Foundation and a trustee of Seau’s estate, filed a wrongful death suit against the NFL. Seau’s parents, Tiaina Sr. and Luisa, also filed a wrongful death suit against the NFL.

“Obviously, I have ambivalent feelings,” said former Chargers linebacker Gary Plummer, a teammate and friend of Seau’s who also is a plaintiff in the NFL’s concussion litigation. “On one hand, I think the NFL did the right thing. On the other, it took Junior’s suicide to push these guys to do the right thing.

“We never wanted his legacy to be his suicide. Well, from today forward, it isn’t. Now, Junior’s legacy is this: He pushed the NFL into doing the right thing.”